Friday August 11, 2017

Army scientists at Aberdeen Proving Ground have made a discovery in the form of an aluminum nanomaterial that can separate the hydrogen and oxygen in water, or any liquid containing water without the need for a catalyst. Dr. Anit Giri said "Also, it is very fast. For example, we have calculated that one kilogram of aluminum powder can produce 220 kilowatts of energy in just three minutes." That metric doubles when you consider the heat energy produced by the reaction as well.

This is a pretty big discovery, provided the nano-galvanic aluminum-based powder isn't extremely difficult to produce, the applications for this could be quite far reaching. the article also states since the nanomaterial powder has the potential to be 3-D printed, researchers envision future air and ground robots that can feed off of their very structures and self-destruct after mission completion. Crazy!

"There are other researchers who have been searching their whole lives and their optimized product takes many hours to achieve, say 50 percent efficiency," Grendahl said. "Ours does it to nearly 100 percent efficiency in less than three minutes."